


all things

by scullywolf



Series: TXF: Scenes in Between [160]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Alcohol, Dream Sequence, F/M, MSR, Missing Scene, Mulder's stupid brain disease thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-05
Updated: 2017-04-05
Packaged: 2018-10-15 02:40:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10548656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullywolf/pseuds/scullywolf
Summary: Mulder's trip to England wasn't really about crop circles.





	1. Chapter 1

_“Look, we’re always running. We’re always chasing the next big thing. Why don’t you ever just stay still?”_  
_“I wouldn’t know what I’d be missing.”_

Well, it worked. Perfect cover story, nailed the delivery. Ensured he’d be heading off to England solo and made her think it was her idea to stay behind. Everything went exactly according to plan and was exactly what he wanted.

So why does it hurt so much?

_It was too easy,_ he realizes, halfway back to his apartment. He thought it would take at least a little more work to maneuver her into asking to sit this one out. To be so readily dismissed instead… well, it stings. Never mind that she barely so much as looked at him once she sat down, staring moodily into her salad as if he’d done something far more egregious than call her into the office on a Saturday. And here he thought she liked spending time with him.

Shutting off his car with a sigh, he resolves to try and let it go, to focus instead on prepping for his trip. His true goal may be a meeting with this doctor, but he wasn’t lying about the crop circle predictions. He doesn’t _actually_ expect them to amount to anything, but it doesn’t hurt to be prepared, just in case. 

***

She had an oddly unsettling dream last night.

She and Mulder were at a conference, but they’d gotten separated, and she was looking all over for him. Finally she thought to go to reception and have him paged. The woman behind the desk seemed surprised to see her.

“Doctor Scully! Why aren’t you at the banquet? They’re going to be announcing your award any minute now.”

“I’m sorry? I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m just trying to find my partner.”

“Your lifetime achievement award. For advancements in pediatric oncology. You _are_ Doctor Dana Scully, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I’m Dana Scully, but there must be some mistake. I’m an FBI agent, not an oncologist. I’m trying to find Agent Mulder, and I was wondering if you could page him.”

The room shifted, the way dreams do, and she was suddenly on a stage in front of a crowd of people in white coats. She looked down to find she was dressed in a ball gown, with a flak jacket and FBI windbreaker over the top. The entire audience was frowning at her. That’s when she realized her father was sitting in the front row.

“I don’t know what you think you’re playing at, Starbuck, but this isn’t funny. Don’t you know that job’s going to get your sister killed one day?”

And then there was Missy on the floor, dead. And Pendrell. And Emily. 

She woke up drenched in sweat with her heart racing, and she’s been out of sorts ever since. She’s tried to put it aside, to chalk it up to a stressed subconscious and let it go. But as the morning’s worn on, she’s found the dream nearly impossible to shake. The question it raised burns in her mind, and she can’t help picking at it, worrying it like an aching tooth. 

_Did I make the wrong choice?_

She would have been a great doctor; she has no doubt of that. But her reasons for leaving medicine to join the FBI had made sense at the time. And more often than not, she has no regrets about the life she’s chosen. Still, though…

This job did come at the cost of Missy’s life. It nearly came at the cost of her own. She helps people too, yes, but she could have helped people as a doctor. If she’d never joined the FBI, she certainly would never have been the target of abduction and experimentation. She wouldn’t have lost her chance to have children. She may well have been doing work that earned her commendation, instead of derision, spending her days in a gleaming hospital, rather than a dusty basement.

_But what about Mulder?_

Mulder. For all that she cares about him, for all that he seems to care about her, he’s never going to want to slow down and live like a normal person. Even now, even with the case closed once and for all on Samantha, his single-minded pursuit of the Truth with a capital T carries on unabated. Crop circles. She’s not sure how much more debunked it can get than farmers literally coming out and saying, “Look, here is exactly how we did it.” She loves his drive, his passion, but for God’s sake, when is enough finally enough?

She sighs, looking down at her half-eaten salad, her appetite completely gone. 


	2. Chapter 2

_“Come on, I’ll make you some tea.”_

They walk together to where he’s parked his car, and it’s not until they reach it that she speaks again.

“Hey, Mulder? How did you even know to look for me here?”

“Oh, I uh--” He points over her shoulder, up the road. “--I saw your car, actually. I was on my way to the office and pulled over when I saw it. I tried calling your cell, but it just went to voicemail. So I figured I’d check at the hospital, see if you were there.”

She puts her hands in her coat pockets, her eyebrows raising after a second. “Oh, huh. I must’ve left my phone at home. You were headed to work?”

“Yeah, I just got off the plane.”

“I actually, um… I told Skinner this morning that I was taking a personal day.”

He frowns. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, everything’s fine, it’s just… it’s been a very strange couple of days.”

“Okay, well, I’ll tell you what. Why don’t we just go to my apartment instead? I can get caught up on my email from there, and you can tell me all about your very strange couple of days over some tea. I mean, if you want to talk about it.”

She takes a deep breath and blows it out slowly, and for a moment he has that same feeling he got in the office on Saturday, like she’s pulling away from him and he’s not sure why. 

But then she nods. “I’d like that, yeah.”

The twist in his stomach unravels somewhat. “Okay. Then I’ll meet you there.”

***

She makes tea while he catches up on his email. They finish with their respective tasks at nearly the same time, Mulder shutting down his computer just as Scully’s setting the mugs on the coffee table. She sits on the couch, toeing off her shoes and tucking her feet up underneath herself. 

“So,” he says, coming to sit beside her, “tell me all about your strange couple of days.”

She starts slowly, haltingly telling him about her dream, if only to provide context for the rest of her story. There’s understanding in his eyes when she talks about her doubts, relief when she clarifies that, even though the dream threw her off balance for a little while, she’s sure about her choices now. Maybe more sure than ever, in fact. 

She stares into her tea when she tells him about her past with Daniel. It’s uncomfortable to consider herself capable of such selfishness. Even if she did end things with him before -- she thought -- there had been any permanent damage, before they had let themselves take things to a place from which there would be no coming back, just the fact that she was tempted to cross that line, to destroy a marriage and a family for the sake of her own happiness, makes her ears and cheeks flare hotly. It’s important that she owns this aspect of herself, critical even to recognize that she has grown and changed, and that _because_ she walked away from Daniel and life as a doctor, she has become the sort of person who would never consider something so selfishly destructive.

At least, she’d like to think so.

Seeing him again, coupled with the lingering questions about the consequences of her career choices, had brought all of those old feelings rushing back. Time and distance make it easy to compartmentalize, to rationalize, but the longing that hit her like a freight train when she first saw his face… not even a longing for _him_ so much as for what he represented. A time before everything got complicated and painful. A time when she knew what she wanted and was sure she was on a path to get it.

The thing is, that simpler time is irretrievably gone. She could no sooner go back there than she could return to her childhood. Even if she dropped everything right now, left Mulder, left the FBI, returned to medicine and Daniel, it would be anything but simple. 

Never mind that sitting beside Mulder now, the very notion of leaving him is unthinkable. 

When she tells him about meeting Colleen, about going back again a second time, she struggles to find the words. His eyes grow wide when she explains about the blonde woman who seemed to be leading her everywhere; his mouth drops open when she tells him of her experience in the Buddhist temple. When she gets to the part about the holistic practitioner she brought to Daniel’s hospital room, he reaches over to put a hand on her forehead. (“Are you sure you’re all right, Scully?”) She chuckles and swats his hand away, shaking her head with a smile.

They order food and switch from tea to whiskey and eventually back to tea again. Hours pass in what feels like minutes, time losing shape and form the way it does when you’re having one of those soul-deep heart-to-hearts. She asks about England, and he shrugs.

“You were right. Whole lotta nothing. The biggest excitement was watching _Galaxy Quest_ on the plane.”

“Wow, you actually stayed awake on a flight long enough to watch a movie?”

“Well, not exactly. But I watched the first half. Twice. We should definitely rent it, you’ll… well, you’ll probably think it’s stupid. But we should still rent it.”

She chuckles into her drink. “Well I’m sorry your crop circle event didn’t pan out. Though I feel like I could have saved you the trip.”

“Yeah, I’ll let you say ‘I told you so,’ but just this once.”

“You’ll _let_ me?” she counters, raising an eyebrow.

“I’ll agree that it’s justified, how about that?”

“Mmm, I don’t know, Mulder. I mean, just because it seemed so obviously bogus to me, that doesn’t mean you were necessarily wrong to go. I mean, how many times have I insisted there was nothing paranormal or supernatural about a given case, and it turned out you were right all along?”

He stares at her for a second. “No seriously, who are you and what have you done with my partner?” 

She laughs then, leaning forward to put her mug next to his on the table. She leans back against the cushions and props her feet up, enjoying the lingering buzz and the sense of being truly relaxed and comfortable for the first time in days. 

_“I just find it hard to believe,” he says at last._  
_“Which part?”_  
_“The part where I go away for two days and your whole life changes.”_


	3. Chapter 3

He leaves her sleeping on the couch and goes to wash away the day’s travel. His head swims with everything she’s told him tonight. It also swims with everything he _didn’t_ tell her.

If ever there were an ideal time to come clean about everything he’s been hiding, this would probably have been it. Between the whiskey and the somewhat confessional nature of their conversation, it should have been so easy to say, “Actually, the crop circle thing was just a convenient excuse for me to go see a doctor who can hopefully save my life.”

Well, okay, not _easy_ exactly. But as easy as it’s ever going to be.

He sighs and turns on the shower. It’s too late now; the moment has passed. After his shower, he’ll go wake her up and bring her to bed, and even if they didn’t have work tomorrow morning, it’s far too late tonight to start in on something that big. _Besides_ , some niggling part of his mind chimes in, _this new treatment might work. Doctor Jones seemed to think I’m an excellent candidate._

Coward, as always.

He’s rinsing the shampoo out of his hair when he feels more than hears her step into the shower behind him. (At least, it had better be her.) 

“Sorry if the noise woke you,” he says, not yet turning around. Her cool hands on his back make him jump just a little, but then they snake around to his chest, and he sighs into the contact as she presses herself flush against him.

“Mm, it’s okay. I wouldn’t have wanted to miss this.” Her voice is husky with sleep, and it’s almost Pavlovian how readily his body responds.

He keeps his arms raised, so as not to smack her in the head with his elbows, and turns around to face her. His hands settle on her back, and he pulls her even closer.

“Another one of those right choices?”

She nods, then raises herself on tiptoe and presses her mouth gently to his. If this moment is the culmination of every choice he’s ever made, every path he’s ever taken, then it’s clear he’s done everything right. 

“Let’s go to bed,” he murmurs against her lips, and she nods again.

They take their time, despite the lateness of the hour, and every touch is a reaffirmation. _I choose you. I choose this. Our life together may not be perfect, but it’s ours, and I wouldn’t want it any other way._

***

There are moments in life whose importance is inherently evident. Moments that might as well be accompanied by a neon sign, so glaringly obvious is their significance. Moments that change everything.

And then there are moments whose importance is only visible in hindsight. The most seemingly mundane, perfectly inconspicuous, utterly ordinary moments that also change everything, but it’s impossible to see that until much later.

In many cases, anywhere from two to six weeks later.

This is one such moment. Mulder snores lightly, his arm draped over a sleeping Scully, just like any number of other nights from the past several months. Outwardly, there is nothing to suggest any great import or significance, and the two of them slumber on, neither one aware of the miracle quietly occurring within her.

**Author's Note:**

> Because I neglected to pull screencaps off Netflix before TXF went away (boo!) caps this week (and for the rest of S7) are via [ladymanson.com](http://ladymanson.com/ShadowofReflection/home.php)


End file.
